Mobile Internet Protocol (IP) is a mobile-based standard for transmitting information via the internet; see “Mobile IP Network Access Identifier Extension for IPv4”, September 2000 (IETF RFC 2794). One problem with mobile IP is that it requires an address such as a mobile care-of-address for a mobile resource to be reachable globally. This is difficult because most networks make use of Network Address Translation (NAT) that assigns an IP address for the use of multiple mobile devices that typically communicate through a single access point, that corresponds to the given IP address. Another problem with mobile IP is that the protocol overhead is high, especially for small packets, because mobile IP uses tunneling procedures to communicate data. Common tunneling techniques include, for example, IP-in-IP or IP-in-User Datagram Protocol (UDP)-in-IP.
With respect to the first problem described above, the use of UDP has been suggested as a work around of NAT, i.e. tunneling IP packets from a home agent using UDP packets. That is, a Mobile Terminal (MT) first registers with its home agent using UDP, creating a mapping in a corresponding foreign network NAT server. This approach of using IP tunneling requires a significant amount of protocol bandwidth in order to operate. Also, the MT has to keep the UDP mapping alive at the foreign NAT server by constantly sending registration messages to the home agent of the MT.
Accordingly, it would be desirable and highly advantageous to have a method and system for mobility management that overcomes the above-described problems of the prior art.